FACE OFF Season 5 Q&A with Mackenzie Westmore and Glenn Hetrick

Season 5 of Face Off debuts next Tuesday, August 13th at 9:00pm ET/PT on Syfy. The series pits 16 special-effects makeup artists against one another in a challenge to see who is the best. This season, the series has a bit of a twist where eight former contestants will return to compete against eight newcomers. Earlier this week I had the opportunity to participate in a press call with host Mackenzie Westmore and judge Glenn Hetrick.

Kyle Nolan: Mackenzie, your father is back again this season as the mentor. Could you talk about what he brings to the show and how the atmosphere in the work room changes when he arrives?

Mackenzie Westmore: Well yes, my dad is back and, you know, it’s always a thrill because I absolutely love and adore my dad and to get to work with him a couple of times a week and walk through the lab is just the greatest gift a daughter could have.

He brings back his expertise and what he can do to help them to improve their scopes, their designs, their color palettes, whatever it is that they have questions on.

It’s so fascinating to both of us that as we walk through the lab, nine times out of 10 what looks amazing in the lab and what looks horrible in the lab always ends-up reversing. It blows our minds. I mean, I would say almost to a T every challenge – it’s not always – but a majority of the time it’s just incredible because I get to be there for every single day.

I get to be there for the reveal, the lab and the elimination and my dad does show up behind the scenes for the elimination to see so that he can help whoever was in the bottom and didn’t go home, he can help them that next week to say this is where you went wrong.

So what we are all blown away with is that to my dad and I to see that change, to see how something that can just look so terribly wrong in the lab and he gives them the advice and then whether they use it or they don’t and the times we’ve seen them really follow through and either change some of the sculpting or change what the color scheme was going to be, it’s really incredible. It’s amazing to see how things can turn out.

Kyle Nolan: And Glenn, in the initial seasons the judges were the ones that did that initial walk-through and critique. Do you miss having that initial interaction with the contestants?

Mackenzie Westmore: Come on Glenn, you missed me, don’t you?

Glenn Hetrick: Yes, so of course you know, we really enjoyed that but it helps us think in terms of adding production value to the finished pieces and we want them to succeed so getting sort of our critiques were more sort of nebulous like okay, this is interesting work and Michael can go in since he’s not judging them and really give them advice that they can choose to follow or not.

It’s different—It’s a different tone. What we were doing and what he’s doing are very different things.

Mackenzie Westmore: I think it doesn’t throw off in the judging aspect. They’re really the judges are looking at it through fresh eyes. They’re not skewed in any way. They’ve already had somebody else come through that just like Glenn said he’s not there to judge them, he’s there to advise them. You know, and then it leaves the job of the judges to do exactly that, to judge what that final product is.

And here’s what others asked on the call…

Can you guys talk about the decision to bring back the vets?

Mackenzie Westmore: You know, for Face Off we, constantly, with each season, have to go bigger and better and it was time for a little shake-up. It was time for a little bit of twist.

Are there going to be more challenges that are newbies versus vets or are they going to be more broken up after the first episode?

Mackenzie Westmore: They will be more broken up but it initially is, you know, that first foundation challenge of the masquerade ball is everybody—each man for himself—and then it does get broken-up here and there into newbies versus vets.

Can you both discuss the process as to who was selected and why?

Glenn Hetrick: Actually, we’re not involved in this. We found out when we got there and it’s purposefully done that way. You know, we don’t want to have any preconceived notions. It’s really about the work each week, so it was a surprise to us as well.

Were you surprised about some of the people that were chosen?

Glenn Hetrick: I can’t really say that I’m surprised. Everyone that comes on the show, regardless of how much they succeed or fail in a given, they’re very impressive artists and they’re trained to do anything from concept to application in two days and it’s insanely difficult so if you’re anyone that’s been on the show that, you know, that got there, belongs there, so it was sort of just a mixed bag of people. I know they wanted to have different seasons record ended.

And Mackenzie can you talk about some of the guest artists?

Mackenzie Westmore: We have some amazing guests coming in this year; episode one starts off with Catherine Hardwicke, director of Twilight. She comes in for the very first foundation challenge which is a masquerade ball.

We also have joining us in that first episode the Heroes of Cosplay which is a new docu-series on Syfy. We also have Bill Corso, an Academy Award-winning makeup artist. He gives contestants some advice on their first spotlight challenge and then as far as throughout the season, we’ve got Kevin Grevioux, Lin Shayne…

We have Jordu Schell, we have Elvira. We have Valli O’Reilly, some really good industry people—some amazing industry people actually—and some other fun ones along the way as well. We’ll have Dave Salmoni of Animal Planet. He comes in for a special challenge that is an animal and human hybrid. That one was a lot of fun.

What do you think is the larger impact or even legacy that Face Off has had on TV and on Syfy?

Glenn Hetrick: I’ve been on so many episodics and shows in the past and I am privy to information that happened in the direction meetings.

Often the case, especially with television shows, they’re looking for a way to engage younger audiences and even with Syfy shows that you’re trying to get somewhere where the children are enjoying the show and the parents can watch with them and our show magically does that.

Think about when you’re a kid: you sit through a boring two-hour, often-wretched film to get to the one shot of the monster, the end of the thing. On our show you get to see 13 monsters in an hour of television.

So kids love the visuals, which is very interesting because it excites them about the art, which I think is the greatest impact we have. Being out at conventions and doing so many signings and things, again and again and again and again, I meet families who have never been to a horror convention.

They’re just there because someone from the show is there and just they’re there because the child wanted to come and the child is now into sculpting and painting and all because of the show.

And then I think the parents get sucked into the competitive aspect of it and then there you have it—something that people can watch with their children. They’re so grateful for that and I think that’s really the biggest aspect of our show that contributes to its success.

Mackenzie Westmore: And for me I think it’s what audiences really respond to and I agree with you, Glenn; it definitely is that family viewing is what’s building more and more each season. As far as reinventing the wheel, a little bit in that the reality-competition world, there’s an instant gratification of that transformation.

I think that’s what the viewer’s really love to see as, you know, whereas with many great reality competition shows, you really you can’t taste the food, you can’t try on the dress, but with us you get to see that instant transformation within the hour of the show.

How much credit would you give Face Off for opening up movie geek/sci-fi geek/comic book geek programming and making that a comfortable space on Syfy?

Glenn Hetrick: Well, it just seems our show is different from the paranormal-based shows and things in that it does cater to the hardcore fans but I don’t know. For me it’s hard to answer that question since I’m such a geek myself it just feels like a natural thought process.

Mackenzie Westmore: Yes, that’s how I feel. I feel it was just a matter of time. I don’t think there’s any credit to be taken or given. I think it was just a matter of time. I think we really struck gold and we got so lucky with Face Off that it’s a great format. It’s a fun show and I think it just kind of opened a door that was just sitting there waiting to be opened.

Do you use the same models over and over again or is it just my imagination?

Glenn Hetrick: As long as they can take it, you know. They really deserve even more credit than they get because it’s very difficult in those make-ups and, in my opinion, to have make-ups applied to them, so that you remember how grueling the process can be.

And these models are coming on and doing different make-ups to fit different weights, each with their own physical challenges and they’re wearing it for a really long period of time so yes, a lot of them do come back.

They want to perform the makeup so that they take direction from the team and really present the makeup when they come out on stage.

Do you hold the veterans to a higher standard?

Glenn Hetrick: I wouldn’t say that we’re looking at the newcomers going – well, you can get away with a lot – but there’re certain things that we expect out of the progression of each season.

There’re just certain repetitive things almost to the point of redundant themes in what we’re asking them to do and mistakes that are made that you just keep repeating the same thing so, yes, they’re held to a higher standard in Season 5 and Season 6 but not unfairly so.

Not that we expect the veterans to do something different than what the newcomers are doing but there’s also the added aspects of this challenge where the newcomers are coming in and they sort of have the benefit of adrenaline.

They haven’t been there before and the veterans are a little more comfortable but they also have a greater opportunity to second-guess themselves. They have already been there and eliminated once so the only mature advantage the veterans have is they’re familiar with the lab.

They know where everything is and they’re a little more comfortable in the process. That actually could be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on how you look at it.

Do you think makeup artists still have an edge over computer-generated images in modern and even future cinema?

Glenn Hetrick: They’re so different. There are things I sort of grew up as a supervisor and shop owner in an era when integration with visual effects was a necessity. It’s just something that’s realistic and it’s going to happen.

A lot of times a decision is made not because one looks better than the other but due to time, you know, it’s not how long it takes to build a makeup following, it’s a consideration of how much it costs versus CG.

It’s on the day if you’ve got lead actors in the scene and you have really difficult make-ups or animatronics or whatever, if it’s going to add days to the production schedule and has to be shot in principle, then often times it’s relegated to post-production which means by necessity it has to be a visual effect. I think that the blend of the two is miraculous.

When we can do things with digital that you can’t tell are digital that are integrated into a physical effect that we could never do physically for instance a lot of zombie gags or something where something’s rotted, for example. Heroes during the last season where he was sandblasted by someone who had telekinesis, they whipped sand at them. And particularly so much of his face, you know, and you can only go so far with that gag and you can’t see through, we can’t obviously put holes in people obviously and do cool make-ups around it so that’s a great integration for V-effects.

You use the green area within the makeup where there’s a piece of the chest missing or something and then we can actually see through it and clearly that’s the best of both worlds. It’s hard having an edge.

I still think, personally, that when it comes to performance art, anything that you can do with a true actor in the makeup, in a prosthetic is superior to a digital effect, not because the digital designs aren’t beautiful and the artists aren’t talented, simply because you’re removing that all-important aspect of having emoting through a makeup is even…

Mackenzie Westmore: You’re going to get a much better performance.

Glenn Hetrick: …yes, and you’re putting them in the same physical space as the other actors in the scene so yes, you know, I think physical effects will always have a place; prosthetics will always have a place.

Mackenzie Westmore: Totally agree.

With the new season of Face Off approaching, what changes or possible improvements do you hope to see in this season’s contestants in comparison with previous seasons?

Mackenzie Westmore: I think there’s just a real shake-up, you know, especially for the newbies with the veterans coming back; it’s a big twist for this particular season .

I think it’s just it’s a whole new season in itself. It’s kind of a standalone because it’s the first time we’re doing this and I think it’s going to be really interesting for the viewers to see some of their old favorites come back and some newcomers that they might fall in love with now for the first time too.

Glenn, it seems that some judges really appreciate when a contestant sticks to their guns in defense of what they’ve done, their work, and at the same time you get contestants who appear to be totally clueless that what they’ve done isn’t really worth defending. In the premiere, things get a little combative there with Steve—where do you draw the line between the standard that you’re going to hold somebody who’s nervous as a newbie against something that just isn’t very good?

Glenn Hetrick: Yes, oh that’s a couple of questions rolled into one so I’m going to pull them apart a little bit. As far as the back story goes, like ours we think in all fairness Neville is the most affected by that when you can come up and tell an interesting back story to defend something and Ve would the second most and the least simply because the angles are coming at it from, right?

Like so when I break it down and I can offer the concept design and go in and work it out whether it’s verbally or hopefully this time do it visually with sketches and things, once we’ve decided on that, I can’t really walk around my shop and look at the artists that are contributing to the work and look at a sculptor’s work and have it not be what it is that I asked for and have them tell me a story.

And we go, okay, that’s cool, and you get like it’s never going to happen. There’s a right and a wrong so I’m not hardened towards that. On the other hand, maybe a little confusing because they’re great questions, but it may be confusing to the viewers at home.

The reason that Nev is more appreciative of that is because as a designer, when he is asked to do something, they almost give almost inexorably you get the same impossible parameters. We want to see a fill-in the blank, Frankenstein or whatever.

We want it to be completely new and original but we also want it to remind us of the classic image but also still try to be sort of sexy and attractive and all those things can’t happen altogether and so as a designer, you’ve got to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks.

And while he’s working through that process, he’ll find things that make sense to him and then he’s got to be able to defend them in a room and get people behind – producers and directors – behind why that might resonate with an audience so when that (classic) on our stage, I think he’s more open to hearing that.

Now for all three of us, you can’t talk your way out of bad work when it’s technically bad quality so one of the things that we judge them on is how they succeed in terms of sculpture, paint, application, technical quality. Another is the creative force, the impetus behind what they’re doing.

So if they’ve done something that’s technically beautiful but it doesn’t fit the challenge which is something we hit over the head constantly, if we ask you to build a Frankenstein and you give us a vampire and then tried to explain to us that Frankenstein’s a vampire, it’s not going to help.

So what I’m saying is the back story thing usually comes in when they’re creative, when their design is something that’s unexpected and don’t feel like it really fits the parameters of the specific challenge. When they tell us the back story, sometimes their thinking, their logic is actually substantiating what’s in front of us and we just didn’t get it out of them visually.

So they can change their minds especially when it’s that thing they’re being judged on in terms of how well does this fit what we asked you to do?

But other times, it’s just indefensible, right?

Glenn Hetrick: Yes, the work is just plain awful. The sculpting is fundamentally bad, the shapes are wrong or nonexistent, the color’s muddy and awful. There’s nothing that you’re going to be able to say that makes that okay.

Mackenzie, will either you or your dad be attending Creation’s big Star Trek convention in Las Vegas later this week?

Mackenzie Westmore: My dad is, yes, he will be there all week long. I know he’s going to be getting up and speaking and giving some talks. He will be there. Unfortunately, I’m not able to make it but he’s going to be there holding down the family fort of Star Trek.

How far into the new season have you shot already?

Mackenzie Westmore: It’s done. We’re shot. We have the whole lineup. We even have, I mean, that’s who our special is. It’s premiering tomorrow night so you’ll get to see exactly what is to come and we have an amazing lineup coming of what the season is, whether it’s the challenges or the guest judges, it’s on its way.

Glenn, for the Season 3 the viewers got to pick the winner. Would you have picked someone different?

Glenn Hetrick: Oh, no, I wouldn’t go back and second-guess that. That was the way that our show worked that season and you know, she had such a triumphant return coming back. Ultimately a lot of the questions center around that and about getting them onstage and if we’re judging them differently.

And the truth is I go into it purposefully making my mindset such that it’s on a week-to-week basis. I do not care what it is that you’ve done in your personal life. I don’t care what you’ve done in your career. I don’t care what you did last week. I don’t care what you’ve done individually versus in another team.

I only care about from each week what’s on the stage in front of me, how well they listened to the direction because ultimately I work with some of the most talented people in the world and if we miss a director’s notes, if we don’t give him what he wants, we fail.

So each week it’s about you listen to the challenge, how would you fill it and then from there technically how sound was your makeup, you know, let’s see the sculpt and the paint and the application so and I’m not saying that in like I just don’t care about anything else. It’s just the game is so difficult.

The competition is so hard that we early on decided that if we look at it as judges any other way than that, it’s really unfair to the other people particularly the person who loses the opportunity to continue week for week.

So any week that we have made a decision, I can go back and justify each and every decision we’ve made. I think the people that ended-up in the finals are all the people that deserved to be there and you know, ultimately I’d love to see everyone get another shot because they go away for six months or they go away for a year.

They go away for a month and just get to readjust to that from not being on the show and they start working again so this season allows us to see that. We get to see what they did, how did this show affect them, how much better have they gotten in the time away?

With the vets, were there any that really came back and blew you away by their improvement since their appearance on the show? Was there any one in particular that stood out or can you guys say?

Mackenzie Westmore: Most definitely.

Glenn Hetrick: For me I think Miranda’s growth in-between her season and this season was pretty remarkable.

Mackenzie Westmore: Yes. That’s exactly what I was going to say.

Glenn Hetrick: It’s just she’s the thing was in the first time Miranda came out, we didn’t see her for very long and she was unseen challenges so the combination of maybe I think the competition affects each contestant in a different way.

The pressure is not only how good the other people are around you but they’re scoping right next to you so like you’re second-guessing yourself as you go and you have no time and then on top of it, you’ve got cameras shoved in your faces which is something that most people aren’t nice with.

So, you know, to be dealing with all of that can be quite overwhelming so I think maybe the combination of Miranda having worked a lot in-between and all of them coming back and knowing what to expect, I think they were able to and also they’ve gotten over the fear of being thrown off the show once.

You know, Nicole, look at how different Nicole’s work was in her season after she was brought back in the challenge that Patrick judged that allowed a contestant to come back in their season. It changes them…

Mackenzie Westmore: That she did said that, that that fear was gone.

Glenn Hetrick: …yes, and I think that they all have that now. Coming back into it, they’re a little more comfortable with exploring their own visions of things and they know the drill a little bit better.

Glenn, if you could tell them all one piece of advice on what the contestants should spend more attention to, what would that be?

Glenn Hetrick: Well, if I had to make one overarching like here’s the statement people missed the most…it would be realism in paint. It’s very difficult to try to do that within the time that they have but a lot of the contestants and I understand why and how because you’re trying to go from concept to application in such a short time but a lot of them fail to pull back on their design.

You got to kind of the trick winning a challenge is you got to come up with an idea that’s big but is manageable as in the time so it’s not just a little face appliance.

Then when you’re sculpting it, allow yourself to not get too caught-up in the detail but at the same time not present something that’s so raw and unfinished and you need to do all those things with the right amount of time management so that you leave yourself time to paint.

We’ve seen so many people get to the point where they have a great idea, the sculpture might be even gorgeous and Mackenzie got to see that in the walk-through and then they just don’t leave themselves time to paint and they don’t express their painting skills appropriately so I don’t think they know how much time it’s going to take to paint a whole chest, arms and the face.

So they just slap their color on it and how do you present something with these big solid fields of color with no breakup, no modeling and no stippling? Those are the tricks. You need translucent layers of paint that you paint little veins in it, sort of figure eighty shapes all over in a pattern to break up the tone and then some stippling.

That’s how our skins are essentially colors and whether the thing’s blue or green or whatever, you need to follow the rules of if it’s fleshy it’s got to be painted like flesh. If it’s a hard surface, it has to be painted like a shell or like metal or and those things are really complex.

So I think that the one note that we keep saying over and over and over again is not because they’re not listening, it’s just because they want so badly for the design to be big and beautifully sculpted, they don’t leave themselves enough time to color it properly.

So can painting sometimes it can be more important than the sculpture do you think at times?

Glenn Hetrick: Yes, because you can’t go the other way, you know, a great sculpture, beautiful, seen it many times, beautiful sculpture can easily be destroyed in the painting and application process. You know, there are make-ups that when you look at the clay of it, it’s gorgeous, then you see it on and it’s a complete and utter failure.

That is because the color is so much controlling our mind’s perception, the way that we perceive shapes is actually it’s a function of the way we’re perceiving light and the color’s controlling that.

So if you color something really poorly, you’re actually obfuscating the beauty of the forms in the sculpture. Vice versa. You could take a pretty rough sculpt that’s devoid of detail and if you really know what you’re doing and I’ve seen this many times in the real working professional world, sculpts are rough, wasn’t enough time to do, you know, insane detail.

So then if you got a great painter and the person applying it knows what they’re doing with the color blend, it can be absolutely beautiful and you’d never know how rough the sculpture was.

What do you think was the most challenging task for the newbies and the most challenging task for the vets if they’re different?

Mackenzie Westmore: Yes, honestly I would say that very first get-go was the most difficult for the newbies obviously because they had no idea. I didn’t even know until I got my script the night before that we were bringing in eight veterans so I walked out on stage and I’m there and I’m looking at them going okay, there are eight of them and I knew that I was going to be introducing the eight veterans but they didn’t.

So it was quite a shock for those newcomers to be standing there and to see eight veterans all of a sudden walk up and they knew right then and there the competition started when I told the competition starts now, it was a big shock for them because, you know, the veterans obviously they know the drill.

They know the routine. They know what’s happening but for those newcomers and then as the season goes on and progresses, you’ll see as time goes on it switches back and forth. One week it’s tough for a veteran, one week it’s tough for a newcomer so it’s really is this fine line and a dance that happens throughout the entire season. Hey, Glenn?

Glenn Hetrick: Yes, the newcomers, yes, the newcomers have to figure out where everything is and how the game works. They’ve had the advantage of seeing more seasons of the show edited together and so they have this benefit that’s sort of their perception of how it works as a viewer.

And so their biggest challenge is trying to acclimate to the environment, figure out how the game works, how we work as people and how to give us what we want and which every season faces coming in.

The returning contestants however have to face what must be a nagging fear and anxiety, what did they do wrong the first time and I don’t know that that’s reality just as it is for many of us, our fears and anxieties are sort of something we do to ourselves more than situational and if you didn’t do a good job or you’re not a great artist, in that particular week that you were thrown off, someone did better than you.

You’re up against a lot of great artists so they have to come back and battle, you know, having been there and having not made it before, they have to second-guess themselves and rethink like what do I have to do this time to now go home and their facing something that’s even scarier which is I don’t want to go home again.

I’ve got another shot at this so if it was me, I’d be even more focused and last season almost desperate in my desire to not, you know, just to make it to the finals and make sure that I’m showing my best work each week.

Is there any particular challenge where the results exceeded your expectations across the board?

Glenn Hetrick: Happens all the time. There are certain weeks where we – and the other way unfortunately – there’s certain weeks we go I cannot believe not just one or two of the make-ups, how well everyone did this week hitting the, you know, the parameters of the challenge, managing to get some beautiful technical execution.

And then there’s weeks where we hear the challenge, we all, right, that’s pretty straightforward in terms of what it is that you should be thinking design-wise and there’s so much for your reference and still so they should be able to really knock this out of the park but for some reason as a whole they’ll be befuddled by what it is they’re supposed to be doing.

They come out and, you know, the majority of the make-ups aren’t where we expected them to be, you just never know.

Last year, Kane was eliminated but then actually brought back and won the competition. Is that something that was just a trial for that particular season or is there something along those lines being done this year?

Mackenzie Westmore: Have to wait and see. Can’t give away too much, got to keep you coming back each week.

What do you think that added to the show last season?

Mackenzie Westmore: I think it added another layer, you know, each season I’m always saying that each season we have to shake it up a little bit, you know, and then making go we stick to a certain formula.

But with each and every season that passes, there has to be something to go bigger and bolder with so that was for that season that was the layer that we added on to just kind of shake it up a little bit for the contestants because they can’t keep coming back and thinking oh, it’s going to be this because we watched last season. No, it’s they’re going to have a twist thrown at them.

Glenn Hetrick: Yes, to your first question, I mean, it (not in place) technically speaking. You had Nicole come back same season and then for the sake of just anybody that doesn’t know this, we did a Web series called redemption after Season 4, is that right, yes, and Eric was his spot on the way back.

And so you know, we affected that particular twist in different ways and I assume that the producers understand the entertainment value of that. It’s fun to watch somebody get a second chance and it’s fun to watch the transformation, what do they do differently when they come back?

So I would imagine that we’ll see different iterations of that particular concept as we go. I hope that we do.

Glenn, human models are clearly a core element to the show but I’m curious if you think something like zombie makeup on the dogs in Resident Evil or Rob Bottin’s animatronic spider-legged head in the theme could ever be the focus on a challenge on your show, something that doesn’t require human models specifically?

Glenn Hetrick: You know, that’s a great question and it’s something that I have actually brought up and discussed before. It’s so much a part of what we do and, you know, I have something like 14 seasons combined – not in a row – combined some of them happening simultaneously just on forensic shows alone, teaching Crossing Jordan and CSI New York.

And that’s, you know, a lot of forensics bodies that are recreations of a particular actor and then we can autopsy their internal organs, the whole deal so yes, there’s a huge aspect of what we do on a day-to-day basis.

However, the way that our show works, I don’t think that we’ve found the right beat yet to do something like that because they have the opportunity to kind of work out into their wardrobe or their story and imbue the character with something like that.

I would personally love it. The animal things, you know the old adage about kids and animals so I think that if you were to do that, anything below what we’ve done – I mean, anything beyond what we’ve done – which is bring them into reference, working with them and stuff, I think that’s a bigger day.

You know, that might be having to split our reveal into two or three days and our schedule is such that it precludes us from doing those things. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible. I wouldn’t say that it won’t happen in the future.

But to present these ideas presents a challenge that’s fundamentally different from what it is that we’re doing on the show in terms of revealing and how we shoot the program but hopefully we’ll see certain ideas like that sneak their way into challenges as a part of it. I know that there’s something on the horizon that is along those lines.

Do either of you have any input into challenge ideas or is that solely the producers that come up with all the ideas for the challenges?

Mackenzie Westmore: So it’s the producers.

Glenn Hetrick: Yes, there’s a specific team of people that work on the show, there’s like a challenge team that comes up with these ideas.

Mackenzie, you always look so glamorous on the show. Can you talk a bit about your relationship with your wardrobe provider? Are any pieces designed specifically for you? Is it the same provider this season as seasons past?

Mackenzie Westmore: It is. You know, we really tried to keep a certain standard but also with this particular season coming up, we all made the agreement that, you know, we would try some different looks and try some new things. We wanted to go a little bit more of an edgier route. You know, I’m so jealous every week standing next to Glenn and I always threaten to steal his jacket.

‏@mckenziewestmor 4 AugAnd this is what happens when I have to wait for the judges! LOL! I raid Glenn’s dressing room! #faceoff !

We surprised him the other day by showing up on set in one of them I snagged from his room. I think that picture’s floating around Twitter right now by the way Glenn.

Glenn Hetrick: Is it really? You posted it on Twitter?

Mackenzie Westmore: Yes, it is.

So, you know, it is the same lady that’s coming back. It’s Darshan Greth and she and her assistant Mariana are just phenomenal. They’re just incredible and we do, we sit down and we discuss, you know, what are some of the looks.

And it’s in combination is we do this all with Syfy as well with their input of course and to create individual looks for me because my what I do on the show, it’s mine is more the I guess the beauty world or the cosmetic world of, you know, color cosmetics, not so much the special effects and everybody always jokes that I’m Marilyn Munster, you know, amongst all the other Munsters.

So it’s fun for us. It’s so great because Darshan is just a powerhouse of, you know, her ability to come up with the designs and find the right designers and really go for some all-out cool outfits.

Do you have a particular favorite fashion designer that you’d prefer to wear at red carpet events?

Mackenzie Westmore: Oh I, you know, with this last season I had a couple of Alexander McQueens that I’m trying to figure out if it would be too much to wear that to the supermarket because I would really love to do that.

I’m totally like obsessed with these dresses. I just walk around the house, you know, just humor myself but no, yes, I would say Alexander McQueen and Cavalli were two of the tops that I had this last season.

If you could make up your own challenge, what would you like to see on the show?

Mackenzie Westmore: Glenn, you want to start or do you want me to?

Glenn Hetrick: No, that’s a good one. I’m going to need a second to think of that…

Mackenzie Westmore: Okay, because I have one that I’ve been wanting for a long time. I would love to see something along the lines, you know, because we always try to add-in some sort of musical side or some sort of music dance, whatever it may be in each season.

I would love to see a Broadway one. I would love to see a Broadway challenge, something along the lines of Shrek or something like that where they’ve got to do the makeup but the performer has to sing through it.

We haven’t done that yet and I would flip out to see that. In fact, I would probably even volunteer and want to be one of the models for that.

Glenn Hetrick: Yes, I think that mine which I’ve brought up before I think in other interviews is I am such an insane fan of Edgar Allen Poe and H.G. Wells craft and they’ve had such a profound impact on our literature through their sort of literary bloodline.

And I think it would be so cool if we did a challenge that was all literature-specifically, horror list inspired and each contestant got to work within the realms of Lovecraft or Poe or so many of the images that we know and love today actually are coming from the minds of those very few authors that the screenplays are based on their work and the screenplay writer is an insane fan and is paying homage to it and then visually it’s being brought to life within the realm of those and not everyone at home knows who H.G. Wells craft is.

So I think that would be an exciting way to expose some of my favorite literature to a wider audience but also to sort of get back to the roots with some of the ideas that we’ve been enjoying in everything from Twilight Zone and Night Gallery up till, you know, (Genno) is a huge Lovecraft fan and uses the imagery in his work all the time.